Lok Sabha election 2024 results: Did Narendra Modi’s Muslim pitch backfire?

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections 2024, Narendra Modi made a controversial pitch that many interpreted as targeting the Muslim community. During his election campaign in Rajasthan's Banswara, a Lok Sabha seat with a sizeable Muslim population, Modi suggested that if the Congress were elected to power, it would distribute the country's wealth among “infiltrators,” and those “with more children.”

Modi claimed, “The Congress manifesto says they will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters, get information about it and then distribute that property…Earlier, when their (Congress) government was in power, they had said that Muslims have the first right to the country's assets. This means to whom will this property be distributed? It will be distributed among those who have more children. It will distributed to the infiltrators.” 

The claim on the distribution of wealth among Muslims was reiterated in his election speeches in Rajasthan's Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Bihar's Munger, West Bengal's Malda and Aligarh of Uttar Pradesh. This speech triggered a “hate-speech” row and fact-checks, with some international press even calling these remarks “anti-Muslim dog whistles for the country’s far-right”.  

Read the fact-check here: PM Modi says Congress wants to give people's wealth to Muslims. Fact check on what Nyay Patra actually says…

The strategy of the country's far-right seemed clear: consolidate the Hindu vote bank by tapping into the communal sentiments and turning the vote bank against the decades-long governance of Congress, which had started to throw shade at Modi's popularity.

Despite massive criticism, Modi made the exact claims again a few days later in Tonk-Sawai Madhopur where he doubled down on his accusations against Muslims and the Congress. He said the grand old party was hatching a conspiracy to “snatch your property” and “distribute it among selected people.”

“The day before yesterday in Rajasthan, I put forth some truth in front of the country, and the entire Congress and INDI Alliance went into a panic. I put forth the truth that Congress is plotting to snatch your property and distribute it to their special people...When I exposed their politics, they got so angry that they started abusing Modi,” he said.

Echoing the same charges at Congress at an Aligarh rally, Narendra Modi again asserted that the grand old party would “steal the gold of mothers and sisters” if elected to power.

“Congress and the INDI alliance have their eyes on your earnings and your property. The 'Shehzada' of Congress says that if their government comes to power, they will investigate who earns how much, who has how many properties….Now, these people's eyes are on the 'Mangalsutra' of women. Their intention is to steal the gold of mothers and sisters,” he said in Aligarh.

Did it work for the BJP? Let's see: 

In some Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan with significant Muslim populations, Modi's approach to polarise the electorate did not reflect in the number of votes he may have anticipated.

In Banswara, Rajasthan, Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) candidate Raj Kumar Roat, supported by Congress registered victory over BJP's Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya by 247,054 votes.

In Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Congress candidate Harish Chandra Meena won over BJP's Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria by 64,949 votes.

While the strategy backfired on him in Banswara and Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, it worked for him in Aligarh, Munger and Malda.

In Aligarh, BJP's Satish Kumar Gautam defeated Samajwadi Party's Bijendra Singh by over 15,000 votes. In Munger, Rajiv Ranjan Singh of BJP ally Janata Dal (United) won by 80,870 votes. He was pitted against RJD's Kumari Anita. West Bengal's Malda, too, chose the BJP over the Trinamool Congress (TMC). There, Khagen Murmu of the BJP won by 77,708 votes.

LOK SABHA ELECTION RESULTS

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has declared results for 542 of the 543 constituencies that went to polls in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. The BJP has won 240 seats, and the Congress bagged 99.

The BJP victory tally was much lower than its 2019 tally of 303 and the 282 seats it had won in 2014. On the other hand, Congress registered strong growth, winning 99 seats compared to 52, which it had won in 2019, and 44 seats in 2014.

The INDIA bloc crossed the 230 mark, posing stiff competition and defying all exit poll predictions.